


from death comes sweet release

by thir13enth



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: (as he should be), M/M, Praise Kink, Submissive Ares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:01:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28927734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thir13enth/pseuds/thir13enth
Summary: Ares pays tribute -- albeit in his own way -- to Death.
Relationships: Ares/Thanatos (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 33
Collections: Hades Rural Dionysia Exchange





	from death comes sweet release

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Umbr_el_on](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umbr_el_on/gifts).



> you wanted submissive and soft ares? you got it. ares one hundred and twenty percent needs a turn to be submissive, and to be quite honest, i actually headcanon him to be much more of a submissive rather than what his patronage may imply! anyway, please enjoy this piece.

Ares waits until Zagreus leaves, watching Thanatos watch Zagreus’s figure bound down the open chamber doors, until his two burning feet are no longer in sight.

“Thought I’d find you here.”

Thanatos whips around, his knuckles whitening as he grips his scythe tight.

Seeing this, Ares knows he’s caught Death by surprise. This wouldn’t be the first time the God of War has caught Thanatos off guard. After all, not even the Fates can forewarn of mortals’ unpredictable passions for bloodlust and vengeance.

“Hello,” Thanatos greets, nevertheless in a calm voice and flat face. He gives Ares a deliberate onceover, as if checking for blood he hasn’t already accounted for. “You saw nothing here.”

Ares flashes him a smile. “Why Thanatos, how could I ignore such an illustrious display of strength like that I witnessed here? Zagreus may have had quantity over you, but his kills were far less elegant.”

Thanatos glares at him, then turns fully towards him, floating until he’s but a few inches close. It’s almost threatening — or at least that’s what anyone but the God of War would think.

“You saw _nothing_ here,” Thanatos repeats.

For what reason Thanatos wants to keep his aiding Zagreus a secret, Ares cannot fathom. After all, what could even his mighty uncle Lord Hades possibly do? Banish Death?

The smile on Ares’s lips does not falter. Nevertheless, he gives Thanatos a nod, a quiet deference to his wish of secrecy.

“I would have expected a warmer greeting from a close associate like yourself,” Ares say then. “Unless, that is to say, it’s been long enough since the last great mortal war that you’ve forgotten how much good work we’ve accomplished together.”

“Together?” Thanatos asks, raising an eyebrow. “I daresay the battlefields are stained with your sole influence — with you putting these ideas into silly human minds. I’m only around to pick up the pieces. Even then those mortals that die most violently are not mine to collect.”

“Oh, but truly, you know I’d be nothing without you,” Ares replies. “For what would my power be if mortals were not scared of Death himself? I am but your student, you see.”

Thanatos simply looks at Ares for a moment, appearing quite done with the small talk. “Get on with it, will you?” he demands. “What does the God of War want with me?” He swings the head of his scythe absentmindedly, perching it over his shoulders.

Ares lick his lips at the show of the blade, tearing his eyes away from the glint of the metal to meet the slate of Thanatos’s eyes. “I simply wanted to speak with you, come to get to know you — when we’re not busy with our duties in the mortal world,” he explains. “I respect you, God of Death, and in fact, I admire you.”

Thanatos clucks his tongue. “Tsch. I thought those of your kind could barely look at those from the Underworld.”

“Nonsense,” Ares chuckles. “You need not care with they think. The Olympians are too busy gloating and fighting amongst each other to realize there is far more to the universe than their horizons. They simply detest what they do not understand.”

“Kind words from someone with their own head in the clouds,” Thanatos quips.

Ares cocks his head to the side curiously. “Me?” he asks, amusedly. “You should know that even my own kin above the surface do not tolerate me. They think me rather unapproachable and quite unlikable. But that is alright. The less of their willing interference in my day, the better off I am.”

“Ah, I see then. I am simply fulfilling your social needs.”

Ares laughs, stepping forward to him. “You are quite terrible at receiving compliment, aren’t you? You replace no one. I came to seek you out specifically. I cherish this time we share right now. I’ve been looking forward to this.”

“Enough,” Thanatos says, looking strangely uncomfortable — from either the praise or the closing distance between their bodies. “As you had desired, we’ve had a conversation. Is that all you wanted from me?”

A small smirk flits over Ares’s lips. “Not quite,” he says, leaning in. “I have yet to pay tribute to you, dear Death.”

Thanatos floats backwards, finding his back hitting a large granite rock. Cornered, Thanatos drops his feet to the ground — and suddenly Ares towers at least a head taller than him. Ares’s gaze never wavers, intensely locked onto Thanatos’s eyes. Eventually, Thanatos concedes, looking away with a roll of his eyes.

“More sweet talk then?” Thanatos asks. “Have you not already exhausted your words?”

“Nowhere close to done, actually,” Ares murmurs, approaching closer still.

He lifts his hand, combing a stray bang over Thanatos’s hand. His hand trails down the back of Thanatos’s hand, faltering over his shoulder, then falling ever downwards. Ares’s fingers trickle slowly down Thanato’s chest — one of his fingertips runs over the left nipple, which puckers at his caress.

Ares feels Thanatos breathe in sharply, sees Thanatos’s grip on his scythe loosen. He chuckles soundlessly at this, placing one knee between Thanatos’s legs and collapsing the distance between their bodies.

“But if you’re tired of talk,” Ares purrs, blowing air over the shell of his ear, “then we can move onto more… actionable things.”

Thanatos straightens his back against the stone behind him. “I see now,” he says, placing a hand on Ares’s chest. “I… don’t know if I can say I expected this at all — hardly fair to give me no warning about these plans of yours.”

Ares only backs his face from the crook of Thanatos’s neck to give him a curt smile. “All’s fair in love and war, is it not?” he teases. Ares’s hand drops further, now massaging the hard shaft protruding from his black robes. “Now, Thanatos,” he asks gently. “Would you like to proceed?”

Thanatos lets out a small groan, and his eyes flutter shut momentarily before he inhales and meets Ares’s eyes. Ares can see Thanatos’s eyes dilate, the frown in his lips soften.

He doesn’t look like he can resist at all.

“Let’s be quick about this then,” Thanatos says, throwing his scythe down to the grass, where its heavy head lands with a dramatic thud to the ground. He drops to his knees then, hands slipping under the seams of Ares’s fustanella.

“Oh, no, no,” Ares retorts. He bends down to lift Thanatos’s chin up with his hand, then pushes him back to stand against the stone. “You need not lift a finger.”

Ares steps down then, one knee on the ground. He loosens the skull belt around Thanatos’s waist, then moves the cloth aside, releasing his cock. Ares studies it briefly, then takes the shaft in his hand, thumb running over the underside. Thanatos exhales with a shudder, leaning back into the rock behind him.

“I’ll do all the work here,” Ares says softly. “I already told you, I’m paying tribute to _you_.” He bows his head, licking a thick stripe from the base of Thanatos’s cock to the very tip. “For all these millennia, you’ve so diligently taken lives — what restless work, what underappreciated toil. I think you could use some reward, don’t you?”

Thanatos opens his mouth to reply, but Ares then closes his lips over Thanatos, pumping slowly with his hand. Thanatos groans, a little more audibly this time, his fingers digging deep into the moss and dirt.

Ares gives him a few more languid strokes, eyes watching Thanatos carefully, before he suddenly releases Thanatos’s cock from his lips with a small audible pop.

Thanatos’ eyes snap open, giving him a disappointed glare.

“This is to your liking?” Ares asks cheekily.

Thanatos stubbornly frowns. “Yes,” he replies, nevertheless. As if suddenly remembering that all of this is happening out in the open space of the Elysium fields, Thanatos scans the distance quickly. Ares takes note of this, looking over his own shoulder himself.

“Are you worried someone should see us?” Ares asks, turning back to Thanatos. He rises to his feet then, Thanatos’s cock still firmly in his palm and his lips glossy with his own spit. “There is nothing to fear. I am merely performing as we all should to our dear God of Death.”

He kisses Thanatos then, hard — his approach as it always is: direct, sincere, effective. With just a little pressure, Thanatos’s mouth opens, and Ares advances further, hungrily kissing him with no sign of retreat.

Ares’s lips only part for a quick breath. “You’re tantalizing, you know?” Ares continues, voice a low rumble deep in his chest. “Your elegance, your steadfastness, your permanence, your certainty. You strike fear among the mortals simply by being. You make my wars all the more adrenaline-inducing — all the more important, all the more _destructive_.”

And with this ode, Ares presses his lips to Thanato’s mouth once again, his grip harder around Thanatos’s cock. He decorates Thanatos’s neck with sharp bites, litters his jaw with hot breath and kisses. Soon, Thanatos finds a rhythm of his own, his hips bucking desperately into Ares’s hand.

“Ares,” Thanatos says — if not, _begs_. “Please.”

Ares chuckles, pecking one last kiss onto Thanato’s lips, onto his shoulder, then drops back down to his knees, taking Thanatos into his mouth completely.

Pleasing comes easy to the God of War. He has only granted victory, after all.

Thanatos is already in pieces the next time Ares opens his eyes.

“Lord Ares,” Thanatos suddenly blurts, the muscles in his legs contracting. His hand snaps forward to grab Ares’s hair, crumbs of dirt and leaves falling from his fingernails. “I—”

Thanatos comes then, his other hand at the back of Ares’s head. His hips thrust forward, once, twice into Ares’s mouth as he releases. All the while, Ares holds a still stance and tight lips, waits until Thanatos has finished. He swallows then.

“Death approaches, indeed,” Ares hums, wiping his tongue over to clean, squeezing out the last bits around the tip. When he deems satisfied, Ares lifts to his knees, pressing a chaste kiss onto Thanatos’s cheek and neatly tucking Thanatos’s clothes back over him.

“Well, now look what you’ve done,” Thanatos says disdainfully, albeit breathless still.

There’s a soft pink flush over his cheeks — and Ares thinks he’s never seen such life from the façade of Death before.

“I have merely paid tribute,” Ares remarks. “I’m glad you found this enjoyable.” He steps backwards then, with one last tug to Thanatos’s belt. “I should be on my way then. I want not to waste any more of your valuable time.”

But just before Ares vanishes, Thanatos lifts his hand.

“Wait,” Thanatos calls out.

Ares chuckles, turning. “What now? You have enough to go again?”

Thanatos hesitates. “I meant… I can’t just leave you like this.”

A curious smile stretches over Ares’s lips. “Like what?”

He sees Thanatos’s eyes travel downward, gaze pointing towards Ares’s hips, where an obvious protrusion lies between his thighs. Ares just notices this himself, and he grins boyishly at Thanatos before readjusting the pleats of his fustanella.

“You need not concern yourself,” he says. “I am quick to relieve myself, and I don’t expect Zagreus to call upon my help until he reaches Styx.”

“No, it’s not that, it’s…” And Thanatos stops here, wordless for a moment, before finally sighing, “I can’t just _not_ return the favor.” He beckons Ares back to him, with a wave of his hand.

Ares makes no intention of moving, shaking his head. “You really do not need to.”

Thanatos looks at him tiredly. “Come here,” he demands.

And how can Ares _not_ do as Death wishes?

Without another second’s hesitation, he returns to Thanatos’s side, and Thanatos reaches down, stroking Ares’s cock steadily in his hand. Ares meets Thanatos’s eyes, but Thanatos is quickly to part from Ares’s intense gaze — perhaps embarrassment? Or maybe even… denied attraction?

Nevertheless, Ares comes quickly and quietly. He turns away just before his release, finishing the last couple of strokes himself and ejecting onto the ground. He lets out a small grunt, takes a moment to catch his breath, then lifts to straighten his back.

“Death and life, one and the same, isn’t it?”

Thanatos huffs. “We won’t speak of this,” he says, hastily wiping his hand behind his back. He sees a smirk curl at the corner of Ares’s lip and then quickly adds, “ _Ever_.”

“Of course,” Ares promises, grin growing wider. “I saw nothing here.”

**Author's Note:**

> the only terrible part of this fic is how both of their names end in s and using the possessive s is a visual nightmare. yes, i know that i can just use the s’ rather than s’s but i’m a bitch for consistency on my own accord and so this is the hell i build myself. please point and laugh at the clown, me.
> 
> (you can do that directly on my [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/napsbeforesleep))


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